Lyons: Is this check for real, or is it just really cunning?

Saturday

Jan 4, 2014 at 5:57 PM

tom lyons

Knowing that scammers often target people her age, Rosalyn was wary of a totally unexpected gift that arrived by mail.

She credited my column for her wariness — she has read about many rip-offs right here. But as a firm believer in miracles and the power of giving, the retirement-age-but-still-working Sarasota woman was still tempted just to believe and be grateful, happy, and flabbergasted.

The unexpected gift: a cashier’s check made out to her, for $25,000, from a totally anonymous gifter.

She contacted me and asked, “Is it a scam?”

Of course it is, I was thinking, but I asked her some questions and looked at what she had received.

Rosalyn — not her real name — is unmarried, lives in a small apartment, and says her life is centered on her church and helping others. Her idea of extravagant spending on herself is buying chocolate.

I liked her as soon as I met her, and didn’t want her to be fleeced by a scam artist.

In the envelope with the check was a letter that claimed to be from attorney “Dale P. Faulkner” representing the anonymous gifter. The letter lacked any sort of letterhead, and had no return address, no Bar Association number, no phone number.

To me, that settled what was already obvious. The gift had “bogus” written all over it, and I told her so.

But, I added, I haven’t figured the scammer’s angle.

Usually, bogus cashier check schemes involve convincing the targeted victim to wire money, supposedly to cover some fees or the like, before the forged check bounces. Who wouldn’t send $500 or $1,000 to get $25,000?

But there was no such request. I suggested one might be on the way, maybe by phone or letter. Or, it could be a phishing scam, a way to seek bank and identity information.

Rosalyn agreed and said she would be careful, but she also pointed out some intriguing details in the “lawyer’s” letter.

The check was written using a nickname she uses, not her legal name. And the letter said that “my client who wishes to remain anonymous” is “especially grateful for your generous organ donation. He sends this gift with the earnest request that you use it for your personal needs and that you remember him in prayer.”

Rosalyn is indeed an organ donor, but not the easy kind — like me — where no parts are to be taken until we are done with them. A decade ago, after learning about a program that helps people who need a kidney to survive, she donated one of hers to a man she didn’t know.

“I had two,” she explained, so why not?

She said it as if that is just the sort of thing nice people ought to do, routinely.

Rosalyn did eventually meet the kidney recipient, and his wife, and they hugged and kept in touch. He died of unrelated causes about four years ago.

His widow told Rosalyn this week that she is equally mystified about who might have sent that check. Not her, she said - no one in her family has money for such a gift, she said.

A scammer could have learned some of that. They’re sneaky.

A helpful guy at Rosalyn’s bank, SunTrust, said the cashier’s check from People’s United Bank, based in Connecticut, looked easy to forge. It lacked the holographic images and such that some banks use. Be careful, he warned.

That SunTrust guy called the Connecticut bank, but says nothing he learned was of much help. The check number sounded plausible, he was told, but the bank officer who had supposedly signed it, in Waterford, was out for the holidays.

I found a Web page and other references to the law office of attorney Dale P. Faulkner in the Waterford area. He, too, was out, according to “Linda,” his secretary.

Two days later, after New Year’s Day, Faulkner was still unavailable, but he does know about my inquiry, “Linda” told me. Sorry, she said, but they can’t answer any questions.

Not even: Did Faulkner send the letter that apparently has his signature on it?

No, Linda said. The client doesn’t want them to talk.

The client? There is a client who wants nothing to be said.

I asked Rosalyn to call Linda. She did, and afterward told me Linda was more chatty with her and had assured her that while no one can be told anything about the donor, the check is real.

According to “Linda,” that is. “Linda” in another state who can’t get her boss on the phone, at a law office with no letterhead stationary. Scams involving forged cashier’s checks are so common that I still thought it would be a Christmas miracle for that check to be anything but a fake.

Later on Jan. 2 I got assistant vice president Constance Simos on the phone at People’s United bank. She was “Connie” now, and back in the office after the holidays.

Your signature seems to be on a certain check, I explained, and gave all the details. Is it real?

Connie said she could not talk to me, but would talk to Rosalyn.

I waited. Finally, Rosalyn reported back to me.

“I talked to Connie,” she said. “She told me the check is real!”

Clouds should have opened to the sound of a trumpet blast. The last 100 reports I got vaguely like this were all about scams. Now, at last, a totally out-of-the-blue anonymous, no-strings-attached gift of a pile of money is real? Really?

I’m still not going to quite, quite, quite believe it until that check has cleared. That might take 10 days or so.

Until then, for all I know, scammers may have taken over an entire Connecticut bank — a large one operating in several northeastern states — and held poor “Connie” at gunpoint. Who knows? It isn’t much more far-fetched than a $25,000 anonymous gift.

And don’t worry. Rosalyn isn’t booking cruises or shopping for a new car or bigger apartment. She has rock-solid plans for that $25,000.

She’s giving it to her church.

“This is a miracle,” she said, and it would be wrong to splurge with it. Her life is about serving God, she reminded me, in ways like driving older people to church and doing whatever she can to be helpful. She isn’t wealthy, she said, but added, “I don’t need anything.”

And before she donates any money, she promised, she will wait for that big check to clear.

If it turns out the check is not good, will she feel bitter?

No way. At the least, she told me, smiling, getting that check has been a fun experience.

“Either way,” she said, “it is a gift from God.”

Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com

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